RESOURCE DESCRIPTION FRAMEWORK

Domain	Definition
Computing	Resource Description Framework (RDF) A specification being developed in 2000 by the W3C as a foundation for processing meta-data regarding resources on the Internet, including the World-Wide Web. Resource Description Framework data consists of resources (nodes), and property/value pairs describing the resource. A node is any object which can be pointed to by a URI, properties are attributes of the node, and values can be either atomic values for the attribute, or other nodes. For example, information about a particular web page (a node), might include the property "Author". The value for the Author property could be either a string giving the name of the author, or a link to a resource describing the author. Resource Description Framework only specifies a mechanism for encoding and transferring meta-data. It does not specify what that meta-data should, or can be. RDF does not, for example, define an "Author" attribute. Sets of properties are defined within RDF Vocabularies (or Schemas). Anynone can create an RDF schema, describing a specialized set of properties, by creating a resource, referenced by the Schema URI, which provides a human- and machine-understandable definition of the schema's properties. The description of a node may include properties defined in different schemas. The properties within a resource description are associated with a certain schema definition using the XML namespace mechanism. Schemas currently being developed include a content screening system modeled after PICS, and a bibliographic vocabulary, such as the Dublin Core Initiative. Home (http://www.w3c.org/RDF/). W3C Resource Description Framework-RDF Model and Syntax Specification (http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-rdf-syntax/). (2000-03-25). Source: The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing.
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits.

Specialty Definition: Resource Description Framework

Resource Description Framework (RDF) is the specification for a metadata model (often implemented as an application of XML) that is maintained by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). This model is based upon the idea of making statements about resources in the form of a subject-predicate-object expression (in RDF terms, called a triple). The subject is essentially the resource, the "thing", being described. The predicate is what trait or aspect about that resource that is being described. And the object is what the value of that trait is.

The terminology is taken from logic and linguistics where subject-predicate or subject-predicate-object structures have very similar but definitely distinct meanings. For RDF, there is again a similar but distinct meaning that might be best described by example.

By examples

Example 1: the postal abbreviation for New York

In the statement 'New York's postal abbreviation is NY', 'New York' would be the RDF subject. 'postal abbreviation' the RDF predicate and 'NY' the RDF object. As far as encoding this into actual RDF triples, simply stating 'New York's postal abbreviation is NY' is not enough.

Example 2: a Wikipedia page about Tony Benn

In a like manner, to say that the title of a page is "Tony Benn" and its publisher is "Wikipedia" would be two statements that would need more to them to be valid RDF statements. In the N-Triples form of RDF, these statements might look like:

 <http://en.wikipedia.org/Tony_Benn> <http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/title> "Tony Benn" .
<http://en.wikipedia.org/Tony_Benn> <http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/publisher> "Wikipedia" .

and might be expressed in RDF/XML as:

xmlns:rdf="http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#"
xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/">

 Tony Benn
 Wikipedia

Why this would be useful in any way is probably not apparent, but the crucial thing to understand is that while "the title of this page is 'Tony Benn'" might have meaning to a human, it means nothing to a computer. The [[purpose] of RDF is to provide an encoding and interpretation mechanism so that resources can be described in a way that particular software can understand it.

More on triples

It should be understood that software has absolutely no common sense, and can only manipulate symbols within the rules given. It has no way of knowing what a "title" or a "Tony Benn" is, and can only manipulate symbols.

Both versions of the statements above are wordy because one requirement for a resource (as a subject or a predicate) is that they be unique. It is obvious why the subject resource should be unique. It says what exact resource is being described. The predicate needs to be unique so that the idea of Title or Publisher will not be ambiguous to software working with the description. If the software recognizes http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/title (a specific definition for a the concept of a title established by the Dublin Core Metadata Initiative), it will also know that this title is different from a land title or an honarary title or just the letters t-i-t-l-e put together.

This mechanism for describing resources is a major component for what is proposed by the W3C's Semantic Web activity to be the next evolutionary stage of the Web, enabling automated software to work with metadata so that users can deal with vast resources of the Web more efficiently and with more certainty.

RDF implementations

RDF Site Summary - this is RSS 1.x (Really Simple Syndication, aka RSS 0.9x and 2.x, isn't based on RDF).
FOAF - designed to describe people, their interests and interconnections.

External Links

Frequency of Internet Keywords: RESOURCE DESCRIPTION FRAMEWORK

Alternative Orthography: RESOURCE DESCRIPTION FRAMEWORK

Hexadecimal (or equivalents, 770AD-1900s) (references)

52 45 53 4F 55 52 43 45 44 45 53 43 52 49 50 54 49 4F 4E 46 52 41 4D 45 57 4F 52 4B

Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519; backwards) (references)

Binary Code (1918-1938, probably earlier) (references)

01010010 01000101 01010011 01001111 01010101 01010010 01000011 01000101 00100000 01000100 01000101 01010011 01000011 01010010 01001001 01010000 01010100 01001001 01001111 01001110 00100000 01000110 01010010 01000001 01001101 01000101 01010111 01001111 01010010 01001011

HTML Code (1990) (references)

&#82 &#69 &#83 &#79 &#85 &#82 &#67 &#69 &#32 &#68 &#69 &#83 &#67 &#82 &#73 &#80 &#84 &#73 &#79 &#78 &#32 &#70 &#82 &#65 &#77 &#69 &#87 &#79 &#82 &#75

ISO 10646 (1991-1993) (references)

0052 0045 0053 004F 0055 0052 0043 0045 0044 0045 0053 0043 0052 0049 0050 0054 0049 004F 004E 0046 0052 0041 004D 0045 0057 004F 0052 004B

Encryption (beginner's substitution cypher): (references)

Expression	Frequency per Day
resource description framework	4
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits.

RESOURCE DESCRIPTION FRAMEWORK

Specialty Definition: RESOURCE DESCRIPTION FRAMEWORK

Computing